Sandra was quiet for a short while as they made their way back along the creek.

"So, this Witch Herschel?" prompted Jonathan.

"Right, yeah, I'm just trying to remember how the story went. It's been a long time since I heard it."

"I mean, you could just sum—"

"Okay, I think I remember," Sandra interrupted him. "There's a bunch of Witch Herschel stories, but they all start the same way. This was one of my favorites."

Long ago, but not so far away, there was a town that lay close to the Great Forest. This was in the days before the King's Coven united the West, when every city was ruled by petty kings who warred ceaselessly with one another. While this particular town was too small to have a king of its own, it was claimed by two different kings who ruled nearby centers of trade. Now in this town lived a commoner girl who was said to be the child of the Seelie Courts for she was as beautiful as a summer day and as quick as a wisp, although her parents were of ordinary stock. This girl's name was Ashlyn, and as she grew older stories of her beauty spread far and wide and eventually reached the ears of the two neighboring kings.

On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, the West King rode into the town with his retinue and demanded Ashlyn come forward. "I have heard there is a peerless beauty living here!" he proclaimed. "Bring her forth and I will decide if she is good enough to be my bride."

Now it just so happened that at that very moment, the East King had also just ridden into town with his retinue, and when he heard the West King's proclamation, he spurred his horse forward and shouted, "You false ruler! Bring the girl to me, and I shall decide whether to take her for wife!"

The retinues of the two kings fell to fighting, and the townsfolk ran for their lives.

Now unknown to the kings, the girl's mother had been at market that day, and she ran back home as quick as her legs would take her. "Ashlyn!" she called. "Ashlyn, come out at once! The East King and the West King have heard of your beauty and are even now fighting for your hand in the center of town! Go to them, or they might destroy the town itself!"

Ashlyn and her father emerged from the house where they had been about their chores. "Do you wish to do as your mother says, and go to the kings?" asked her father.

Ashlyn did not spare that a second's thought. "No, father," she said. "I do not wish to be the bone those dogs fight over."

"Well said," replied her father, who had never liked either the West or the East King. "Then you will have to flee into the forest where their horses cannot follow. Hide a little ways into the trees, and I shall fetch you when they are gone."

Ashlyn ran into the house, put on some of her father's ill-fitting leathers that he wore when he needed to traverse the edge of the Great Forest, and spared but a moment to grab a wizened apple, a hatchet, and perfectly round river stone to serve as her supplies. The apple and river stone she slipped into her pockets, and the hatchet she hung from the strap that was meant for it.

When she emerged from the house, her mother was wringing her hands while her father glowered nearby. "Go quickly, daughter," he said, and gave her a rough kiss on he forehead.

"The kings, the kings, I can hear them approach!" cried her mother, and without a look back Ashlyn plunged into the Great Forest, leaving her parents behind her.

Although she planned to heed her father's advice and go only a little way into the forest, the sounds of the kings' advance upon her home gave wings to her steps and soon she found herself far deeper than she had ever been before, and utterly lost.

As Ashlyn wandered deeper into the forest, the light began to dim and she grew worried that she would not find somewhere to shelter before night. She turned to go aside and perhaps work her way back toward her home, but found her way blocked by a snarl of thorn bushes. Turning the other way, she discovered still more thorny branches choking out the space between the trees, and when she turned completely about she found to her dismay that even the path she had taken was blocked by thorns.

A thrill of fear shot through Ashlyn, and she heard a whispered voice on the wind:

Count your blessings, count your fears,

Count your remaining span of years.

On stormy nights, there were people in her town who liked to tell stories about a being who lived in the Great Forest in the middle of a maze of thorns, and although Ashlyn's mother hated those sorts of stories, Ashlyn had still managed to hear a few of them.

Quick as she could, Ashlyn pulled the wizened apple from within her pocket. There were many things said about the Witch Herschel, but it was universally agreed upon that he had made a pact with an unbound demon and hated liars and the young and beautiful. The whisper came again, and Ashlyn knew she didn't have much time.

All your fortune, all your power,

Cannot stay your final hour.

All her life people had said of Ashlyn that she was a child of Seelie Courts, but although they were referring to her otherworldly beauty there was another way in which this was true: though an untaught peasant, Ashlyn was skilled with the magics of illusion. Using her magic, Ashlyn bound her countenance into the apple in her hand, exchanging for its own. Before her eyes, the apple grew rich and lustrous, while Ashlyn's own face collapsed into the wrinkles of an ancient crone. Stuffing the apple back into her pocket, Ashlyn turned and continued on, doing her best to imitate the shuffle of the old widow who lived three farms down. The whisper came a third and final time.

Hang your kings, hang lowborn,

Hang yourself on walls of thorn.

Ashlyn stepped smartly into an open space in the center of the maze and behind her thorns the size of her forearm speared through the space she had exited as silently as Death placing his hand on a man's shoulder. She barely gave them a glance, however, for in front of her squatted a great, rotting house like those owned by the kings themselves and in front of the house was a hovel made of mud and straw with firelight shining through its windows.

"Who is that I hear, scampering about my home?" called a voice, and Witch Herschel emerged from the hut.

No two stories had agreed on what he looked like, but to Ashlyn Witch Herschel looked like an ordinary young man such as she might see at the town market. Having no other options, Ashlyn hobbled her way toward him.

"Well, it isn't a young mouse, but an old rat!" exclaimed With Herschel as she drew near. "And what are you doing so deep in the woods, grandmother?"

Everyone knew that Witch Herschel could smell an untruth, and regularly dined on liars. "Two kings pursued me here, my lord, both enchanted by my beauty."

Witch Herschel stopped dead, a look of astonishment crossing his face before he threw back his head and laughed. Ashlyn flinched back and almost impaled herself on the thorns behind her, for where other men had teeth Witch Herschel had the fangs of a wolf.

"Is that right, grandmother?" said Witch Herschel, and with a wave of his hand dispelled all magic from Ashlyn's face.

However, Ashlyn had set her spell into the apple itself, and the Witch's foul sorcery passed over her without shifting a single wrinkle.

"How wonderful," said Witch Herschel, with a toothy grin. "I thought you must be some sort of youngster in disguise. Those do tend to plague me. Well, grandmother, I find myself in an uncommonly good mood. Not only will I allow you to leave unhindered by my thorn maze, but if you give me your most prized possession I will even take care of those kings that bother you."

"Alas," croaked Ashlyn, "but my most prized possession is a comforter of softest down, and it remains at home upon my bed." This was true; her parents had saved for years to afford Ashlyn's comforter, and it was the most beloved of all her few belongings.

"What a marvelously forthright person you are, grandmother," said Witch Herschel. "In that case, I will take whatever you hold most prized upon your person at this moment.

Ashlyn made a show of thinking over this offer, but truly considered it almost too good to be true. Feigning reluctance, she pulled the apple from her pocket and held it out.

Witch Herschel stepped forward and Ashlyn forced herself to stay her ground, though her legs shook with fear.

"What an exquisite fruit," murmured the Witch, plucking the apple from her hand and caressing its flesh. "I have never seen its like, here in the deep woods. Consider our bargain sealed." And with a wave of his hand the thorns behind Ashlyn drew aside.

"Thank you kindly, young man," said Ashlyn, and turned and hobbled as fast as she dared down the open path away from Witch Herschel.

Just as she drew near the exit of the thorn maze, she felt the skin on her face tighten, and knew that Witch Herschel must finally have tried dispelling magic from the apple. The thorns around her shivered in place with a sound like leaves laughing, and thorned branches began to snake their way across the exit. Ashlyn ripped the hatchet from its place at her waist and frantically chopped at the brambles in front of her, barely clearing enough space for her to thrust herself out of the maze, though the hatchet was caught by a twist of vine even as she stepped out and torn from her grasp.

Ashlyn fell to her knees in thanks that she had made it safely out of the maze. If the Witch had thought to dispel the apple while she still stood in front of him, she was sure things wouldn't have ended so well for her.

As she recovered her breath, she heard coming from the woods ahead of her the sound of many boots and realized that the kings had finally caught her up. For a moment Ashlyn despaired, but then she remembered the river stone. Pulling it out, she cast upon it the sound of her steps, and with a flick of her wrist she rolled it back into the thorn maze and ran on silent feet aside into the Great Woods.

The kings and their men burst into the space where Ashlyn had stood but moments before, and hearing the sound of her fleeing footsteps the charged into the thorn maze, never to be seen or heard from again.

As for Ashlyn, she made her way out of the Great Forest, and though she lived for many more years and had many other adventures, she never again dared the boundaries of that dread wood, nor did anyone ever hear the sound of her footsteps again.